Thursday, October 29, 2009

As the last basketball season of my life approaches, I can feel my days at Ohio State slowly coming to an end. I arrived on this campus some three years ago with a lot of uncertainty, but have since realized that this school is quite possibly the greatest thing to ever happen to me. Even after I graduate and move on with my life, I’ll always remember the time-honored traditions of The Ohio State University. No matter where life takes me, I’ll never forget things like singing Carmen Ohio at the football games, jumping in Mirror Lake before the Michigan game, and being absolutely hounded by charities or student organizations while walking through the Oval.

For those who don’t know, the Oval is basically Ohio State’s version of a quad, only I refuse to call it a quad because nothing about it suggests that it has anything to do with the number 4. Still, it’s probably the closest thing that Ohio State has to offer to what Frank The Tank would have streaked through on his way to the gymnasium, which is really the absolute best way to describe it. Anyway, since the Oval is kind of the focal point of the campus, all sorts of organizations decide to set up displays to explain why I should care that one out of every 2,000 babies born in Pakistan will become addicted to Taco Bell’s Cheesy Gordita Crunch at some point in their lives. It’s not that I don’t care (Gordita Addiction is very serious to me), it’s just that I usually walk through the Oval right around the time Home Improvement reruns are being shown on TBS and when given the choice, I’d rather watch Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor botch a toilet installation than hear about how Pakistani kids can’t resist the concept of a soft taco shell wrapped around a hard taco shell with a melted cheese buffer.

Because I want to avoid encounters like this at all costs, I usually end up pulling out my cell phone and faking a conversation, which is also a strategy I use when I cross paths with The Villain on campus. My guess is that most of you do the same when approached by these groups of people. The truth is, for the most part, that it’s harder to get us to pay attention to someone luring us into a conversation about their charity than it is to get Twisted Sister to “take it”. This doesn’t make us bad people. Not at all. We simply like to do charitable things on our own time instead of being coerced into caring. In fact, the only time most of us don’t mind being told that we should care about a particular charity is when we are informed by the DJ that Charity is currently dancing on the main stage. Again, we aren’t bad people. It’s just that it feels weird being told that we need to care. Unless, of course, we’re being told that “caring” involves growing a mustache for an entire month.

It was brought to my attention by a few members of the Trillion Man March that the month of November marks a very important time for lovers of mustaches and haters of prostate cancer. That’s because November has been dubbed “Movember” by a couple of Australians, which may initially sound like a month long tribute to GUTS announcer Mo Quirk, but is actually an event that was started to raise prostate cancer awareness (apparently “mo” is an Australian slang term for mustache). I thought Movember was just another event started by guys in high school who wanted an excuse to grow out their peach fuzz without upsetting their moms, but as it turns out, Movember is actually the biggest charity event in the world that is targeted exclusively for men, having raised over $47 million to date. It’s like the men’s equivalent of Race For The Cure, except instead of using your legs all you have to use are your upper lip hair follicles.

Even though one out of every six American men will get prostate cancer at some point in time, it should be noted that I can’t think of anyone close to me who has ever had the disease. I’m not trying to get you to care because prostate cancer has personally destroyed my life by inflicting the people around me. It’s not like that at all. I’m just trying to get you to care because Movember provides a great opportunity to have an excuse to grow a mustache and also provides a great opportunity to raise awareness for a good cause. You can become a better person simply by growing out your mustache. Call me crazy but I think this might be the epitome of a win/win situation.

The main reason I brought up Movember is because I wanted to explain to everyone why you might see me sitting on the bench with a mustache next month. I’m actually not the only one on the basketball team taking part in the event, though, as William Buford has informed me that he’s planning on growing his mustache out as well. In fact, Will said that he has been so serious about prostate cancer that he’s been growing out his mustache since the day he was born. Sure it looks like he doesn’t have any hair on his upper lip, but Will swears that he’s never shaved in his entire life. The world needs more heroes like William Buford.

If you want to get involved with Movember (and really, why wouldn’t you?), you can do so by obviously either donating money or simply growing out your mustache. One of the members of the Trillion Man March, Bryan Kendall, was the first to e-mail me about the event and in doing so he asked for me to join the team he started. I told him I would but being the fool that I am, I accidentally started my own Movember team that I don’t know how to delete. With that being said, I think I figured out how to remedy this problem. All of you in the Trillion Man March that don’t feel like growing out your mustaches but would like to donate money, please do so after you join Bryan’s team by clicking here and registering. That way I’m not taking donations away from Bryan’s team, in case the top donating team gets free t-shirts or something (I couldn’t accept anyway because of the NCAA). The rest of you who are either broke like me or just don’t feel like donating, but really want to grow out your ‘stache and support the cause, can join the Club Trillion team by clicking here and then clicking the “Join My Team” tab underneath the CLUB TRIL logo. In joining my team, you can upload pictures of your ‘stache to compare to mine. At the end of every blog post during the month, I will publish a picture of my ‘stache at that point along with the best mustache of the Club Trillion team (read all about the mustache growing rules here). Think about what’s going on here for a second. By simply growing out your mustache you can help raise awareness for a very serious disease and maybe get a shout-out on my blog. You’d have to be a fool not to take part in this. If nothing else, grow out your mustache to see how it competes with some of the greatest mustaches society has ever seen.

I apologize if I’m coming across as preachy on this post, but as I said earlier, I’m not personally linked to this disease in any way and therefore don’t feel like I’m on the Oval shoving a pamphlet in your face. I’m not pretending to be a spokesman for prostate cancer awareness (which is probably a relief to the Prostate Cancer Foundation) in the slightest. I’m just a guy who likes growing out his mustache and likes to help out wherever I can. Hopefully a lot of you will join Bryan’s group and donate or my group and grow out your ‘stache and make this event a lot of fun for both me and the Trillion Man March. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no excuse whatsoever as to why every college guy reading this doesn’t grow out their mustache. It’s not like growing out a mustache is really going to ruin your daily schedule of waking up at noon, skipping class, playing Halo for five hours, and downing a six pack at night. Plus, if you start growing out your mustache on Sunday, by the time Thanksgiving rolls around your ‘stache will be so long it will completely ruin your mom’s attempt at getting a nice family picture. I know that’s why I’m doing it. Just kidding, mom!

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If you want to learn more about the history of Movember, you can do so by clicking here.

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Streak for the Cash Group Leader: T. Rittenhouse and T. Roche (streak of 15 wins)

Streak for the Cash Group Loser: A. Forth (streak of 10)

Your awesome YouTube was sent in to me by Mike R. There’s your shout-out, Mike. And here's your video.

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